MAIN ARTICLE: The Philosophy of Space.
Dennis Wingo has an interesting article on space and philosophy in the coming decades.
Poll Results: Yesterday's poll had threes the average turnout and it looks like it is a hit.
Star Trek: In the News. Star Trek' stuns competition with $79.2M debut.
Yesterday's Comments: "Careful, Vlad somebody may start calling you a "nuclear shill", like our compadre Nnadir!" - Jeff
Today's Poll: Do you believe being able to work and live in space is a species imperative?
NEXT STOP, OUTER SPACE:
There is an interesting article on SpaceRef.com by Dennis Wingo. What will be the drive for humanity to start utilizing off world resources? Wiil the Moon be the industrial powerhouse of the future?
Read on...
The Philosophy of Space
"With the advent of the Augustine Commission II an opportunity has arisen for a discussion on the philosophy of space. Therefore the purpose of this missive is to look at where many in society see our future going, and to show where space either supports the positive aspects or negates the negative ones. Without this connection, we have no future in space for human spaceflight and the drums of doom will continue to sound over our world.
Why Space?
The reason for human spaceflight beyond the pure adventure is as old as mankind, moving outward to build a better life and make money. Obtaining riches for God and country as well. To put it in the modern vernacular it would be to "save the planet", which really means save the humans on the planet. I have the February 29, 2009 copy of the magazine, New Scientist on my desk. The front cover has the words "Earth 2099" and following it the words
Population Crashes
Mass Migration
Vast New Deserts
Cities Abandoned
Sounds like fun huh. The entire issue is about how climate change, resource depletion, and over population leads to a secular Malthusian apocalypse of civilization and that the only solution is to radically scale back the scope of our current civilization in order to insure the survival of much reduced humanity. This mindset goes back in the modern era to the book "Limits to Growth" by Meadows (who was just honored by the Japanese Emperor for his work in this area), that itself was a result of a study carried out by a group of European banking and corporate executives called the Club of Rome."
--end quote--
POLL RESULTS:
The poll: "What did you think of the new Star Trek Movie." had a strong turnout. With 55% of DKOS members recommending it.
35% I very strongly recommend the movie.
11% I strongly recommend the movie.
09% I recommend the movie.
`Star Trek' stuns competition with $79.2M debut
"LOS ANGELES – "Star Trek" had an even more galactic opening weekend than originally estimated.
According to final studio numbers Monday, director J.J. Abrams' reboot of the revered sci-fi franchise made $79.2 million from late Thursday night through Sunday. That's nearly $3 million more than Paramount Pictures expected.
Final numbers on big movies often differ from earlier projections, because Sunday figures are based on estimates of how big the crowds will be that day.
"Star Trek" far surpassed the $50 million or so the studio figured it would make, with the help of massive critical acclaim and strong word of mouth.
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com:
- "Star Trek," Paramount, $75,204,289, 3,849 locations, $19,539 average, $79,204,289, one week.
- "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," Fox, $26,408,288, 4,102 locations, $6,438 average, $129,032,435, two weeks.
- "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," Warner Bros., $10,258,141, 3,175 locations, $3,231 average, $30,054,386, two weeks." --end quote--
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"I saw it Thursday loved it. not an A+, since I'm not a teenage boy and therefore got a bit bored with the shooting and explosions at points, but I loved the way they handled the recasting and the reframing of the Trek backstory.
I am looking forward to the next movie, and plan to drive 45 minutes tomorrow afternoon to see this one again tomorrow on IMAX!" - TrueBlueMajority
"I wish I wish I wish I could be in Florida to see this lift-off. STS, Hubble. Such great accomplishments, achieved, as always, at laughable funding levels with tech soon outdated but damn it, works just fine, thank you." - Crashing Vor
TODAY'S POLL:
Is the future as glum as mentioned inte the main article? Will space be a sink or swim moment for hunmanity?
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.
